Anna D'Este - Significance

Significance

In many ways Anna d'Este represents a typical example of a female member of the aristocracy in the second half of the 16th century. Like many of her compeers she managed enormous estates, she arranged marriages and careers for her children and grandchildren, she looked after her clients at court, and she exchanged numerous letters with other members of the European aristocracy. The networks in which Anna d'Este moved were of great importance for her, above all her relationship with her mother and mother-in-law as well as with the queens, the queen-mother and the princesses of the kingdom.

With regard to the confessional disputes, the life of Anna d'Este does not differ much from those of other princesses of her times, either. Her mother was a Calvinist, her father, husbands and sons were more or less radical Catholics. Although she didn't abjure Catholicism, Anna d'Este never gave away her "true" beliefs, and the sources tell us that she went to confession but also that she listened to sermons.

Therefore, it has to be supposed that for her, as well as for many of her contemporaries, family ties and networks were as important as confessional convictions, and that religious practices were frequently adapted to the requirements of the moment.

In other regards, however, Anna d'Este held a special position at the court of France, which can be seen from the numerous lawsuits she was involved in. Although the entanglement in legal proceedings even for minor causes was quite common for the French aristocracy of the early modern period, it was Anna d'Este and Renée de France who contested the king's right to Brittany, and in doing so they referred to their positions as daughter and granddaughter of a French king.

In this as in other lawsuits Anna d'Este proceeded with such skill that she either won her trials or obliged the king and his judges to comply with compromises quite advantageous to the princess.